34 Pieces of You

by Carmen Rodrigues

  “Jess,” Ellie said. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

  I flicked on the lamp beside her desk and began to dress. Ellie watched me, blinking rapidly as her eyes adjusted to the light.

  “So you’re just going to leave?” she asked.

  “Yes.” I needed to be away from her. Needed some time to think about what all of this meant. How her sleeping with Tommy but being with me were two things that might coexist.

  I stopped dressing. “Can you at least tell me why?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I had that fight with Sargeant. I didn’t . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

  “And that makes it okay? I mean, is this what’s going to happen every time you’re not thinking?”

  She stared at me blankly. “I don’t know.”

  I started to dress again, pulling on my socks and boots, grabbing my coat.

  “So that’s it? We’re done?” she said.

  “Isn’t that what you want?” She turned to stare at the wall, rapidly retreating into herself. I was tired of chasing her. I wondered what would happen if I let go. “Isn’t that what you want?” I repeated.

  Finally she looked at me. Her voice was flat. “Jess, don’t you get it? I’ll destroy you. I destroy everything.”

  Before, I might have gone to her, convinced her she was wrong, but the path between us was blocked now.

  “So we’re done?” she said.

  “I guess so,” I said, not sure of anything except that I wanted to hurt her as much as she hurt me.

  She nodded.

  At the door, I hesitated, pathetically, hoping she’d find some way to convince me to stay. But she didn’t say a word. She just continued to stare at that wall.

  In her mind, I was already gone.

  31.

  Mom saw the cuts today. I was reaching past her for a cookie. She held my hand and twisted until my forearm was raised close to her face. She looked at me, injured eyes, but didn’t say a word. Typical.

  Sarah

  AFTER. APRIL.

  Concerned Therapist enters my room at the junior psych ward. Her fake leather loafers sound less like they are shuffling and more like they are being dragged against the linoleum floor. Still, her face is perfectly composed. She has makeup on, but underneath her eyes are lines and wrinkles where she’s never had them before.

  She moves to the window, draws the curtain aside, and stares at who knows what. All I can see is her solemn face reflected in the dark windowpane and the hazy glow of streetlights that dot the parking lot.

  I bet during her morning meditation she imagined herself heaped with blessings, a person given the power to help others break the cycles of their painful lives, but now she is faced with this, another tragedy, another person in her care that she cannot help.

  With her back to me she says, “I want to help you, Sarah. I do.” She turns to look at me. “Do you believe me?”

  And here’s the truth: I do know she wants to help me. I just don’t believe that she or anyone else can.

  “I guess it doesn’t make a difference, does it?” Concerned Therapist offers me a weary smile. “Nothing I say or do is going to make a bit of difference to you. Is it, Sarah?”

  I look at the floor and do what I always do—wait her out.

  She also waits. Then she says, “Fine. Let’s just get through the paperwork.” Her tone has changed from concern to disinterest. The shift unsettles me. Before, when my parents came to visit, they were frantic. I expected that. When Jessie came, she was silently hysterical, and I expected that too. When Jake visited—angry and confused, and for the most part saying nothing as he held my hand—I hadn’t expected that, but I was glad he came. Now, this calmness from her, this sudden distance, is something I understand but don’t expect. I guess I expected conversations about my confirmed suicidal tendencies and coming to terms with my pain.

  “The thing is, Sarah . . .” Disinterested Therapist flips my left hand over and stares at the bandage like she is studying it for scientific purposes. “You’re entitled to take your own life. That’s really your choice. I can’t stop you. The only thing I can do, realistically, is delay you. I can choose to delay you for a long enough time that maybe, just maybe, you might reconsider your choices. But I can’t stop you.”

  She releases my arm, and it falls limply onto the cotton blanket. She turns back toward the window, pulls a clipboard from the messenger bag hanging across her shoulder, and jots down a few notes. Then she stops to look at me. After a second, she sighs and returns to her scribbling.

  Maybe this is reverse psychology, maybe this is just another ace up her sleeve, but I still feel scared. I don’t know why it matters that Concerned Therapist cares, but it does matter.

  She steps away from the window while she writes her notes, and suddenly I see my reflection. Only it can’t be my reflection because it doesn’t look anything like me. This is the face of someone else—some other girl with matted hair, hollow cheeks, and ghostly eyes—her lips so raw in places they’re bleeding.

  She shoves her clipboard in her bag and walks briskly to the door. “That’s everything for today—”

  “Wait.” The word propels me forward, my hand stretching out toward her. “Wait!”

  “What, Sarah?” Her voice is flat. “I have other patients, patients who actively participate in their own healing.”

  “Wait,” I beg in a feeble voice. “Wait.” I hate myself for sounding weak, but I don’t try to stop the words from falling. “Wait.” Tears slide down my cheeks. I push myself farther off the bed. “Wait.”

  Because the truth is: I don’t know if she can help me, but I want to let her try.

  “Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait,” I say, and I don’t stop until I feel her arms around me. She pulls me close, breaking the rules for Concerned Therapists everywhere. I hold her tightly. “Please,” I say. “I need you to wait.” I look up at her. Her face softens, the lines suddenly smoothed away.

  She says, “I know, Sarah. I know.”

  * * *

  At Mount Holy Oak Recovery Home, we are told to believe in a higher power. That this higher power will play a large part in our recovery. That this higher power is bigger than our worries. That this higher power has plans for us that are so big we can’t comprehend them with our limited view. That the problem is that we are small and cannot see beyond our individual pain. “But God or the Universe or whatever word you would like to use for that power,” the counselor tells us, “sees your lives, and we must have faith in God and the path he has chosen for us.”

  I came to Mount Holy Oak two weeks after my release from the hospital, and my first four nights were spent praying to God. I asked him to show me he existed. To give me a sign. Something small but significant—a shooting star, a perfectly white pigeon, a freaking rainbow on a foggy morning—but the sign never came. If God exists, it’s pretty obvious he can’t hear me or he’s choosing to ignore me.

  I’m thinking about God and divine intervention and all of that when the garden pathway leads me to Jake. He smiles when he sees me, and I smile back. It’s a simple exchange—just not for us. A lot has happened in the last five months. The truth is, a lot has happened in the last five years. Still, Jake smiles at me, and for that moment I am relieved. And I wonder if this is God, if God can be found in Jake’s smile.

  “I’m sorry I’m late.” He lays his hand on my arm. This is a significant gesture for him. Until now, he’s never touched me in public. There were moments—stolen moments in Jake’s pool or the basement of my house—but none of them ever strung together to make us whole. “Are you okay?” His voice is low but durable.

  “Yeah, just waiting for you.” We move aside to let another group pass. My stomach flips. I know this visit will be hard. I know that I’ll have to tell Jake about what Jess showed me—Ellie’s box with its tiny slips of paper. But I don’t want to talk about the secrets. I don’t even want to know them. I don’t want to carry the weight of what Ellie’s f
irst stepfather did to her. Or what she did to herself.

  “You want to go inside?” Jake points toward the greenhouse in the center of the garden. “It’s cold out here. I think it’s going to snow.” He glances at my light jacket. I wonder if he’s thinking about the night in the basement. He grabs my hands, rubs them warm with the soft wool of his gray gloves. “Is that okay?”

  We walk to the greenhouse in silence. Inside, Jake points to a bench tucked away beneath the barren arms of a wispy tree. We sit beside each other, our thighs touching. Jake reaches into his pocket, takes out a small folded piece of paper, and shows it to me.

  “What is it?”

  “A note from Tommy. He feels really bad about everything, but I know it might be too soon for you. So when you’re ready for it, just ask me. Okay?” He puts it back in his pocket.

  I haven’t spoken to Tommy since that night by the lake, but when I was in the hospital, my mom said he called to check on me. That’s the complexity of Tommy. When he knows you’ve been pushed too far, he stops pushing entirely.

  Jake scratches his nose with his gloved hand, and then rolls his head to look directly at me. The spaces beneath his eyes are puffy, bluish bags that make him seem like he’s been beaten up a lot these last few months.

  “Jake?” I show him my hands. “I can’t stop them from shaking.”

  Again he takes my hands in his. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know.” I want to ask him for a time capsule, something that can be buried in the dirt and won’t decompose—a safe place to put all of this, so we can be free. “Jake, I know about Ellie, about what happened to her.”

  He nods his head, and his half smile pulls down at the ends until his lips are now a thin, straight line.

  “This whole time I’ve been going over that night. My mind just kept going over it. You know, just going in circles, and I felt this guilt. This horrible guilt, like if I had just, I don’t know, been a better friend or a better person, I could have prevented it. But . . . now . . . Why didn’t she tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  My tears are big. Sloppy. My tears are the heaviness I’ve held inside for the last five months. I can’t make the words come out anymore, but with Jake I don’t need to. He holds me, and only when I tell him I’m okay again does he let go. He leans back against the bench, but continues to warm my hands between his gloved palms. He’s quiet for a while, but finally he says, “I’ve never told anyone. Ellie and I—even we barely talked about it after it happened, after Mom got rid of him.”

  I feel a slight tremor in his hands. And I notice that there is a tear in his glove, and I remember that tear in his T-shirt at my twelfth birthday party. I remember Jake with his moody pout and cigarettes. Ellie with her vacant eyes and sarcastic sense of humor. Tommy, who just wanted to play jokes on everyone, to get the easy laugh. I remember me and Jake and that first kiss, the feeling of his hand pressed against my back.

  “I want you to tell me,” I say. “I want you to tell me everything. I want you to trust me.”

  He looks away, toward another family moving through the greenhouse—a father and teenage daughter, her hand clinging to his arm. The way she holds on to him makes me think about my dad, how he’d move heaven and earth if I needed him. And I think about Jake and Ellie’s father, how he walked out on them when they were so young. And how in the end it doesn’t matter if you have a great dad or a horrible dad, because the truth is, even with the best parents we all lose our way.

  “Jake?” I drift my hand across his cheek. When our eyes meet, I lean forward and press my lips to his. His eyelashes are coated with tears. “I can’t do this alone anymore.”

  His body tenses, and then, very quietly, he whispers near my ear, “I don’t know what to do. . . . I need someone to tell me what to do.” He’s shaking, and I try as best I can to do what he did for me earlier. I try to hold him still. He buries his head in my shoulder and wraps his arm around my waist. And when he starts to sob, I pull him so close the air between us disappears. And there is nothing more than me and Jake, and the feeling of my hand, firm and warm, on his back.

  32.

  You told me this house was made of empty bottles and crumbling corks. You told me we’d get out one day. But then you went away and forgot about me. I wasn’t surprised, though. I always knew it would be that way. That one day you’d be like him and leave me far behind.

  Jake

  AFTER. MAY.

  On my third visit to see Sarah at Mount Holy Oak, we search for an hour to find a private spot in the garden. Someplace where we can be alone together. There we lay out a blanket, settle down. She curls up against my chest, and soon she’s more than in the crook of my arm; the full length of her is on top of me. I kiss her softly and say, “You okay?”

  “This doesn’t bother you? All of me on top of you?”

  “No, I like you like this,” I say, because I want her to know that if she needs me to, I will always carry the weight of her.

  I never thought it was possible to be like this with Sarah. It’s hard not to wonder how long it will last. But I tell myself to just take this like I’ve been taking the rest of my life: one day at a time. It’s an expression Sarah uses during our phone calls, and Mom uses at home. It’s an expression that’s at the core of what they do here at Mount Holy Oak and, I guess, in AA. As corny as the phrase might sound, the philosophy behind it carries a certain merit.

  It’s an unusually sunny day. For a little while Sarah and I just lie on the grass, the sun nearly lulling us to sleep. Then I stroke her back, and we get to talking about her life here. She tells me why she likes or dislikes some of the newer residents; about her therapist, whom she wants to buy a new pair of shoes for; and about some of the staff, many of whom are kind. We talk about my life: my new job at the running store; my stepfather, who, turns out, is an okay guy; and my mom, back from rehab. When we hear others approaching, Sarah says it’s time to go.

  “Already?”

  “Yeah. But I have a surprise.”

  Sarah likes surprises. She gave me one the last time I was here—a small pillow she’d made from one of her old, unwashed T-shirts. “So you don’t get lonely,” she said. And then she lifted the pillow to my nose. It smelled just like her—sweet with a hint of sour.

  “Go this way.” Sarah leads me through the garden. When the main house is in view, she wraps her arms around my waist and says, “I get out of here next month, and I was thinking that, maybe, if you want, we could go to Falling Creek together.” She pauses to search my face. “We could plant flowers next to the tree where Ellie’s ashes were buried. You know, maybe it’s time to say some real good-byes.” She puts her palm to my ribs. Her breathing is heavy. I can tell it takes a lot for her to ask this. “What do you think?”

  I run my hands over my hair. I shaved it down last week, wanting a fresh start. Mom said it reminded her of a disastrous crew cut I had when I was ten, and then we were quiet for a while, because that time period reminds us of Ellie. Neither of us is sure what to do with our memories of her. Right now there’s barely enough space for us.

  I rest my hand on Sarah’s hip and say, “I . . . Can I think about it?”

  She nods, and we continue walking toward the main building. Eventually, we cut through the lobby, packed with patients. Some wear expressions like Sarah’s, which vacillates between okay and not so okay. Others seem genuinely happy, laughing at something one of their family members said. These, I think, are the ones who will get out soon. And others sit quietly, staring at the wall or some piece of landscape just beyond the window. I hope these are brand-new patients, but I suspect that some of them have been to Mount Holy Oak before.

  We stop in front of the art room, and she says, “I’ve been spending a lot of time in here lately.” She leads me to a small table. “This one’s mine. I mean, I have to share it with a few others, but, you know, it’s still kind of mine.” She pulls out the chair, and I sit. She reaches into a bin below the
table and pulls out a scrapbook. “I was working on this right before you came.”

  Inside are photos of her and Ellie. Them at fourteen, their legs too skinny to properly fill in a pair of jeans. At sixteen, experimental streaks of red lightening Sarah’s brown hair, and Ellie, looking bored, standing behind her, smoking a cigarette.

  “These are from the box I sent you?” I ask, and she nods.

  A few pages later I find one of me and Ellie, taken the day before I left. Ellie’s cringing because I’m drunk and holding her too tight. I’m telling her the story of when she was seven and I was eight and I jumped out at her from behind a basement wall, scaring her so bad she peed her pants.

  On the opposite page is Ellie’s reaction. She’s laughing so hard her eyes are watering. She was about to wipe away her tears when the photograph was snapped, permanently suspending her somewhere in between.

  “It’s not done yet,” Sarah says. “But it’s . . . I don’t know. It helps. Somehow.”

  A woman’s voice calls her name. Sarah turns and waves at a young nurse with blond hair standing in the hallway. “Oh, wait. Do you mind hanging here for a sec? I want you to meet my favorite nurse. I know it’s stupid to have a favorite nurse. But I told her all about you. So . . .” She walks toward the nurse. I watch them chat for a few seconds, and then I turn back to the album. I stare at Ellie’s face, at her blue eyes that are the same as mine. I place my hand on the photograph and feel that familiar tear of heartbreak. I say her name aloud. I say, “Ellie.” And then, because I want to remember how the word sounds coming from my mouth, I say it again. “Ellie.”

  And inside, I say, I miss you, Ellie.

  I think about you every day.

  I’m sorry I didn’t get home in time.

  I hope you’ll forgive me.